Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Morris of Aberavon

Monday 18th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morris of Aberavon]

My Lords, I add my concerns to those just expressed regarding the requirement of a two-thirds majority in both Houses. I was a little baffled when I read this for the first time. Perhaps we could have an explanation of how it will work in practice. Our understanding, gained from student days, is that no Parliament can bind its successor. If another Parliament, by a simple Act of Parliament—in Churchillian terms, by a majority of one—deletes this provision, then this cannot stand.

I am sure that greater minds than mine have considered the matter and that we can have an explanation, but the House deserves one on this point of how it will work in practice, given past practice that you cannot bind a successor Parliament.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I do not wish to delay your Lordships for long, because I imagine that the House will wish to move to a resolution on the amendment fairly speedily. Nor do I wish to sow doubts about the viability of the compromise which has been reached on grounds of high jurisprudential and constitutional matter. Instead, I raise a rather more down to earth and practical question for the Minister to respond to. I imagine that I am not the only person who has not been able to pore over the detail of the proposed royal charter, but I am aware that two of the things that Lord Justice Leveson required of any guarantee of the regulation of the press were that it should be both independent and effective. I wish to address the question of independence.

There has been much discussion in the media over the last few days of an intervention by some members of the press who sought to ensure that the press should have a veto over the membership of the regulatory body. I would like to be assured that that requirement on the part of the press has been abandoned, and that the regulatory body will be entirely independent in that sense and not subject to press interference over its membership.